City Winner History?

[agemennon675]

Yea more or less, I covered this above, but it's a dual issue.

You can make classes more "meta" viable, but that won't necessarily solve class distribution issues. Even if SWs and Engineers are better/more meta, there's not going to be room for 6-8 of them in a city. It's a combination of under-performing classes (of which destro also has some, just not as many), plus poor overall realm class distribution. Destro would also be having issues if they had as many Maguses trying to do city as Order has Engies.

So yea, I think those classes need to be looked at for more meta wb viability, but we should also understand as a community that this is only one piece of the puzzle. I could imagine seeing SW/WH (and WE)/IB/AM buffs and not seeing the city win rates change much.

If stacking SW's WH's IB's AM's was as viable as stacking other classes like kotbs-wp-bw-WL-SL these people could form their own warbands and not feel useless and will win more instances than they were previously(pugging and losing %100) if you take 4 engi 2sw 2wh as your dps right now you are going to lose it against pug 2-2-2 anyway which leads to people to solo que

Unfortunately that would require basically a full rework of the game. Every class should have a niche a purpose, and a role in cities. However, to make things like Engies/Maguses as viable as Sorcs/BWs is probably more about nerfing Sorcs/BWs than it is about buffing Engineers/Magi. Same goes for Chosen/KoTBS in relation to BG/IB. Some of these classes are just more viable by design, and it's very difficult to balance in relation to one another. If you buff other RDPS damage up to Sorc/BW levels, this makes the Sorc/BW no longer "as viable", as those other classes aren't as squishy and have a variety of utility/cc that the sorc/bw doesn't get. For BG/IB, trying to buff them up to Chosen/KOTBS levels... how are you going to make it so that a single target buffer/debuffer is viable in comparison to an AoE one? The reality is you can't just boost the IB/BG to be so strong on a single target that they are better picks than Chosen/KoTBS because they would be incredibly OP and broken.

I don't see that happening honestly. Looks like the devs philosophy is more one of 'every class should have a viable role in cities", but not "every class can fulfill the same spots in a wb", no matter what you do to an IB for example, the chance that you don't want 4 KoTBS in a city WB seems slim to none.

Than the only solution left is making end game gear available on other aspects of the game where every class can find its spot(it all depends on if you see a problem with the way best gear acquired or not)

[Fatpig]

End cross realming.

No free realm switch if you’re been on 90 minutes. Timer should start once you log off. If you played Order to help push city with plan to play Destro in there, you should be SOL.

Apply a 4 hour realm switch timer starting when you log out.

But can't people just set up a 2nd account for their other toons?

[nuadarstark]

I do think class distribution is a major factor that we need to considered here too. Let's think of this in pure mathematical terms, if Engineers make up 10% of the Order playerbase, and Magii make up 5%. Lets say we have 504 order and 504 destro on, there's only so many ways those classes can be distributed. This will also equate to exactly 21 city instances if everyone queues.

So, in this example, we have roughly 25 Magi and 50 Engineers looking for city WB spots. Unfortunately, most WBs don't want to take more than 1 of them. That means that 3 Magii and 29 Engineers are now trying to fill spots that aren't wanted in. So you can see how this class distribution can lead to issues. If you have 3 pug Magii, it's probably somewhat statistically irrelevant. However 29 Pug Engineers means you will likely have 3-4 per pug wb, and you can see why thats an issue in winning a city. So overall class distribution is a very important concept for understanding the overall city win rate distribution. In this example, lets assume that roughly 2/3rds of the WBs aren't completely pugging and won't take a 2nd Engineer, that means that Order needs to fill 7 wbs with 29 engineers, so on average to fit them in you need 7 pug wbs who are running 4 engineers each, all of these will basically auto-lose the city.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there are X number of Order pugs that are over-filled with DPS and under-filled with tanks/healers, who make up the "chaff" of who doesn't get into the "Good wbs". My own anecdotal evidence in fighting these 4-6 engine pugs (or 10-12 DPS order pugs) also aligns with this theory. I also think this highly aligns with the overall city win rate, as basically every city, Order immediately throws away about 1/3rd of their instances, whereas Destro probably throws away 1/10th.

That is one of the most reasonable Destro opinions here. I don't say it often when it comes to your comments, but I completely agree there Foof. The amount of people playing classes that are lower tier as far as endgame orvr or cities go is staggering, which throws the whole scoring completely out of whack.

There are very few guilds or groups that are running a stable, pre-formed composition on the Order side, that's nearly impossible with the lower amount of hardcore players, small guilds & alliances and the random nature of City pops. So you take what you get as close to the ideal compo. Which means some players playing certain classes get priority pass (BWs, SLayers, WLs, WPs, KotBSs), even though they might actually not be that good, just out of virtue of their class (issue in itself). Players playing classes like Engi, any SW and WHs get shafted massively, being forced to solo queue or go with anyone who takes them. At least with IBs, SMs, AMs and RPs you are useful to the instance, though you might have problems getting into some WBs if leaders are picky. This imbalance then means you can have 6 WHs, engis or whatever added to your 12 or 18 man even if it was perfect 2-2-2 before, which will again throw the balance in your instance closer to a Destro win. Or even just completely out of whack 2 healer, no tanks, all dps solo instances that are pretty much free win for Destro.

Now how to actually fix this in a reasonable timeframe? I have no idea. Adding group utility to underperforming classes/specs is one way, but lets face it that's never gonna happen - it's a lot of work and a lot of people on the Destro side would throw a massive fit, no matter how measured the rework is. Order getting together more with better alliances and less amount of old guilds of 3 veteran players would give the better performing groups more chance (as you'd have less amount of the 6-12-18 man groups getting ruined by getting 7 SWs added to them), but that would still leave many players in the solo queue instances dead in the water (even worse than before) and people love being in 3 player guilds apparently.

[Akilinus]

would be more interesting to see the amount of pug/premade groups on each side.

[Acidic]

would be more interesting to see the amount of pug/premade groups on each side.

Problem is what is a pug , premade, guild WB , guild WB with alts ....
The time schedule of cities means most are effectively pugs except when it drops in prime time for some zone.

[Akilinus]

would be more interesting to see the amount of pug/premade groups on each side.

Problem is what is a pug , premade, guild WB , guild WB with alts ....
The time schedule of cities means most are effectively pugs except when it drops in prime time for some zone.

Just the amount of people queuing as a group versus those who were queuing solo

[Foofmonger]

If stacking SW's WH's IB's AM's was as viable as stacking other classes like kotbs-wp-bw-WL-SL these people could form their own warbands and not feel useless and will win more instances than they were previously(pugging and losing %100) if you take 4 engi 2sw 2wh as your dps right now you are going to lose it against pug 2-2-2 anyway which leads to people to solo que

Unfortunately that would require basically a full rework of the game. Every class should have a niche a purpose, and a role in cities. However, to make things like Engies/Maguses as viable as Sorcs/BWs is probably more about nerfing Sorcs/BWs than it is about buffing Engineers/Magi. Same goes for Chosen/KoTBS in relation to BG/IB. Some of these classes are just more viable by design, and it's very difficult to balance in relation to one another. If you buff other RDPS damage up to Sorc/BW levels, this makes the Sorc/BW no longer "as viable", as those other classes aren't as squishy and have a variety of utility/cc that the sorc/bw doesn't get. For BG/IB, trying to buff them up to Chosen/KOTBS levels... how are you going to make it so that a single target buffer/debuffer is viable in comparison to an AoE one? The reality is you can't just boost the IB/BG to be so strong on a single target that they are better picks than Chosen/KoTBS because they would be incredibly OP and broken.

I don't see that happening honestly. Looks like the devs philosophy is more one of 'every class should have a viable role in cities", but not "every class can fulfill the same spots in a wb", no matter what you do to an IB for example, the chance that you don't want 4 KoTBS in a city WB seems slim to none.

Than the only solution left is making end game gear available on other aspects of the game where every class can find its spot(it all depends on if you see a problem with the way best gear acquired or not)

I think that's the best solution probably, but also buffing non-meta classes to have a role should also be something that's done, that way you don't "have" to do city to progress, and all classes should at least have 1-2 viable spots in a city WB if they choose to use the city to progress.

[Foofmonger]

would be more interesting to see the amount of pug/premade groups on each side.

Problem is what is a pug , premade, guild WB , guild WB with alts ....
The time schedule of cities means most are effectively pugs except when it drops in prime time for some zone.

What would be interesting is to be able to see the exact class distribution of all instances in a single city. Pug vs premade isn't really what matters to Acidics point (as there is too much nuance w/group size), but comps are really what we're trying to get at here. How many Destro WBs are 2-2-2 with balanced/desired classes, and how many Order WBs are 2-2-2 with balanced/desired classes. If we could get this data, we would be able to infer how many wbs are "organized" (2-2-2 with good distribution) and how many wbs are "disorganized (non 2-2-2s with wonky class distributions). We could then correlate that versus the win rate of that city to see how many of the non 2-2-2 wbs are equating to losses.

[Foofmonger]

I do think class distribution is a major factor that we need to considered here too. Let's think of this in pure mathematical terms, if Engineers make up 10% of the Order playerbase, and Magii make up 5%. Lets say we have 504 order and 504 destro on, there's only so many ways those classes can be distributed. This will also equate to exactly 21 city instances if everyone queues.

So, in this example, we have roughly 25 Magi and 50 Engineers looking for city WB spots. Unfortunately, most WBs don't want to take more than 1 of them. That means that 3 Magii and 29 Engineers are now trying to fill spots that aren't wanted in. So you can see how this class distribution can lead to issues. If you have 3 pug Magii, it's probably somewhat statistically irrelevant. However 29 Pug Engineers means you will likely have 3-4 per pug wb, and you can see why thats an issue in winning a city. So overall class distribution is a very important concept for understanding the overall city win rate distribution. In this example, lets assume that roughly 2/3rds of the WBs aren't completely pugging and won't take a 2nd Engineer, that means that Order needs to fill 7 wbs with 29 engineers, so on average to fit them in you need 7 pug wbs who are running 4 engineers each, all of these will basically auto-lose the city.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there are X number of Order pugs that are over-filled with DPS and under-filled with tanks/healers, who make up the "chaff" of who doesn't get into the "Good wbs". My own anecdotal evidence in fighting these 4-6 engine pugs (or 10-12 DPS order pugs) also aligns with this theory. I also think this highly aligns with the overall city win rate, as basically every city, Order immediately throws away about 1/3rd of their instances, whereas Destro probably throws away 1/10th.

That is one of the most reasonable Destro opinions here. I don't say it often when it comes to your comments, but I completely agree there Foof. The amount of people playing classes that are lower tier as far as endgame orvr or cities go is staggering, which throws the whole scoring completely out of whack.

There are very few guilds or groups that are running a stable, pre-formed composition on the Order side, that's nearly impossible with the lower amount of hardcore players, small guilds & alliances and the random nature of City pops. So you take what you get as close to the ideal compo. Which means some players playing certain classes get priority pass (BWs, SLayers, WLs, WPs, KotBSs), even though they might actually not be that good, just out of virtue of their class (issue in itself). Players playing classes like Engi, any SW and WHs get shafted massively, being forced to solo queue or go with anyone who takes them. At least with IBs, SMs, AMs and RPs you are useful to the instance, though you might have problems getting into some WBs if leaders are picky. This imbalance then means you can have 6 WHs, engis or whatever added to your 12 or 18 man even if it was perfect 2-2-2 before, which will again throw the balance in your instance closer to a Destro win. Or even just completely out of whack 2 healer, no tanks, all dps solo instances that are pretty much free win for Destro.

Now how to actually fix this in a reasonable timeframe? I have no idea. Adding group utility to underperforming classes/specs is one way, but lets face it that's never gonna happen - it's a lot of work and a lot of people on the Destro side would throw a massive fit, no matter how measured the rework is. Order getting together more with better alliances and less amount of old guilds of 3 veteran players would give the better performing groups more chance (as you'd have less amount of the 6-12-18 man groups getting ruined by getting 7 SWs added to them), but that would still leave many players in the solo queue instances dead in the water (even worse than before) and people love being in 3 player guilds apparently.

Philosophically, I want a balanced game with 50% win rates. I am biased to destro, but I do understand and acknolwedge my own bias which helps me be more objective. I

I think there are a few major things that can help here, some of which would be for the devs and some of which would be for the players.

DEVS:
1. Underperforming classes could use buffs to be city viable.
2. End-game progression shouldn't be locked to just cities.

Players:
1. Can work on overall organization/alliances/guilds on the Order side. Seems fragmented and like it needs consolidation and more massive 10 guild alliances (as Destro does).
2. Can re-roll from underdesired classes into underplayed but desired classes. If 50% of the BWs and Engineers on Orders rerolled into tanks, Order would probably be in a much better state as far as class distribution.

I honestly would like to see all 4 of those things happen. It would be nice to have more balanced cities in terms of class viability, have options for progressing end-game without doing cities, have a more overall cohesive and organized Order realm, and have Order playing the correct class distribution that will net them more wins and not leave them with X amount of pugger cities that will lose their instances.

[nuadarstark]

DEVS:
1. Underperforming classes could use buffs to be city viable.
2. End-game progression shouldn't be locked to just cities.

Players:
1. Can work on overall organization/alliances/guilds on the Order side. Seems fragmented and like it needs consolidation and more massive 10 guild alliances (as Destro does).
2. Can re-roll from underdesired classes into underplayed but desired classes. If 50% of the BWs and Engineers on Orders rerolled into tanks, Order would probably be in a much better state as far as class distribution.

Completely agree there, on all points. But I also don't think it's gonna be something solved any time soon. We're in summer time and that's always rough couple of months for MMOs and this is a pretty big change for both the Devs and Order. It needs to happen though, don't get me wrong.

DEVS - I think devs really need to look at the campaign itself and the endgame progression and I think there could be a ton of little "utility" changes to some of the less desirable classes.

Players - People honestly need to get more together, 100% there. Bigger guilds, bigger alliances, less running of 12-mans and hoping you don't get "bad classes" added to you, less doing everything in guild if you're not a big guild, etc. The re-roll thing is slowly happening, we're having a lot of folks who rolled engis, BWs and SWs after the rework in particular looking more into support classes. But people are stubborn and will often just quit when they class they love is not viable in the endgame or it gets nerfed for whatever reason. The SW thing in particular was very rough. And issue with Engis, BWs, SWs, etc are that those were always historicaly iconic and loved Warhammer classes/archetypes so new people will roll them no matter what.